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Pure Genius: New Medical Drama On CBS

Pure Genius = Pure Cancellation?

Pure Genius is another entry into the crowded TV medical drama arena starring Augustus Prew as tech billionaire James Bell and Dermot Mulroney as Dr. Walter Wallace. This is the first season of Pure Genius and the smart money is on this show being relegated to the garbage bin of television history.

Is it the worst show ever? No, but if it came out that a cliche machine was used to write each episode, I would not be surprised.

10 Things I Learned Watching Pure Genius

1. Pure Genius should have been named Bunker Hill - the name of the fictional hospital tech billionaire James Bell (Augustus Prew) started to reinvent medicine. The show's writers and actors seem overly preoccupied with promoting Bunker Hill at every possible opportunity as if it were a real place. The name of the hospital frequently appears behind the hospital's staff as they talk about a case or as they move from one area of the hospital to another. Bunker Hill is also forced into dialogue and the results are often painful.

2. Pure Genius is gold for a drinking game. When you watch an episode, take a drink every time Bunker Hill is mentioned or one of the characters does something so over pretentious that you are actually embarrassed for the actor. I've just started writing this and I'm already smashed.

3. The star of the show, Augustus Prew, has really great hair. His face is incredibly punchable, but the dude's got great locks.

4. Sometimes, in order for someone to gain admittance into Bunker Hill, friends and family have to go to outrageous extremes to appease the pretentious staff at the hospital. In one episode the entire choir of a church sings in the lobby as Prew and company look on. Apparently, the performance was good enough (and incredibly long) for them to admit a patient dying from an untreatable form of AIDS.

5. If you remember Kick Ass 2, you might recognize Augustus Prew as Todd - who replaced Evan Peters as one of Aaron Taylor-Johnson's high-school peeps. He's actually more annoying in Pure Genius than he was in Kick Ass 2.

Dermot Mulroney cringes his way through Pure Genius

6. It seems as though almost every character on Pure Genius can speak Mandarin.

7. Apparently, a priest can be a medical doctor and nobody talks about it.

8. Bunker Hill has access to medical techniques that no other hospital has access to - and they don't seem to share this information with other hospitals. In just this first season, the crew from Pure Genius managed to eradicate advanced cancer and liver disease with zero side-effects.

9. It's difficult to care about the patients or the medical staff on this show. The characters are made of cardboard and James Bell tries so hard to care about the little people that it makes you wonder if he's just doing it because he knows he's a fictional character that is being judged for how he treats the peons around him. Every moment of this show comes down to clearly-defined cliches or stereotypes. Ugh.

10. There is no salvation for this show - no pathway forward. If it hasn't been cancelled yet, it will be. This strangely-addictive monstrosity of a show will not survive much longer. Unfortunately, there are no super-advanced hospitals networks can send their failed shows to.

If you manage to grind through some episodes of Pure Genius starring Augustus Prew, Dermot Mulroney and a bunch of really attractive young doctors feel free to add things you learned about the TV show in the comments below.